In many industries, on-line services have developed over recent years which enable interaction between a consumer and the computer systems of a service provider. One example is in the airline industry. Most airlines operate on-line reservation systems which enable their customers to make and amend flight bookings and arrange other related services.
Typically, access is via a secure website and messages are transported to the airline's computer systems via web-service calls using HTTP protocol. HTTP is a World Wide Web protocol and its use is limited to the World Wide Web. Web service calls are typically blocking calls which terminate when a response is received from the airline system.
In recent years there has been a proliferation of devices which can access web services. Whereas a few years ago access was essentially limited to desktop and lap top computers, there are now many smart devices, such as tablets and smart phones, provided by a range of different manufacturers using a variety of operating systems. The airline or other service provider must be able to accept communications from any of these devices and must therefore develop web applications for each of these channels and, moreover, support all of these channels. Any change in the configuration of the device or its operating system requires rigorous testing. Regression testing is particularly burdensome and must be performed every time a device provider releases a software upgrade. Moreover, when the airline or other service provider make a change to their own software, that change must be tested exhaustively across all channels which is both time consuming and expensive. It is estimated that the cost of developing a new reservation GUI to an airline can be up to $10 million and the maintenance of all the services can occupy up to 100 people in a medium sized airline.
While the airline industry is a good example of this problem, it also exists in many other industries which deliver complex interactive services to users including, for example, banking, hotel and other travel industries.
Within the airline industry, the developing use of web services creates further problems. As well as using web services to communicate with customers, airlines use web services for a complex network of communications with agents and a variety of airline systems. Necessarily, airline representatives are located around the world, often at airports with poor internet access and the lack of available bandwidth in some locations can make web services hard to run and an inappropriate way of communicating between systems.
We have appreciated that consumer interactions are increasingly person to person interactions regardless of whether they are via the internet or a mobile phone network. This contrasts with interactions with an airline core system in which the interaction with the consumer is via a GUI which then interacts with the airline core system. This approach is very common for interactions made via the internet for many businesses.
The invention aims to address the problems outlined above.